Home Entertainment Spending Rises, Buoyed by Streaming Subscriptions

Consumer spending on movies and television in-home entertainment formats nudged up a quarter of a percent to about $3.94 billion in the third quarter, from about $3.93 billion in the period a year earlier, according to the Digital Entertainment Group.

For the year to date, spending was $12.34 billion, up about 1 percent from $12.22 billion for the same period in 2011. The slight increase came as revenue from the subscription streaming of programming rose sharply, to about $579 million in the third quarter, up from about $255 million in the quarter a year ago, and revenue from both video-on-demand and the electronic sale of digital programming rose. Those increases offset continuing declines in the sale of DVDs and the rental of programming in disc format in stores and by subscription.